OMG you know what this means?! They FINALLY realized that you can't stream 60FPS video streams of 1920x1080 over the internet!

They may have even discovered that gamers don't tolerate an internet connection level of input delay in their games! And that serious gamers want to own their own gear! And that gamers do other things than games on their computer so they own a faster computer anyway! And that rendering a 1920x1080 video stream locally also takes a fast computer!

With Onlive's ridiculous pricing, are people actually surprised? The last time I took a look at Onlive they were "selling" games at about the same price as retail. Why would I want to pay retail price for something I am essentially renting from a new and untested company while having no recourse when they go under?

OMG you know what this means?! They FINALLY realized that you can't stream 60FPS video streams of 1920x1080 over the internet!They may have even discovered that gamers don't tolerate an internet connection level of input delay in their games! And that serious gamers want to own their own gear! And that gamers do other things than games on their computer so they own a faster computer anyway! And that rendering a 1920x1080 video stream locally also takes a fast computer!

they didn't realize that yet. they realized that they can transfer the valuable assets for pennies on the dollar to an entity they control while screwing the other investors and employees out of their shares.

the ceo(and most of the board) were assholes and still are, simple as that.

[...] the idea that investors will run to invest in markets they patently dont understand doesnt speak well for the efficiency of the capital markets.

No, this speaks very well for the efficiency of the capital markets. The investors risked their own money, not my money. It was a bad idea and people who invest in bad ideas lose their money. As a result of companies they invest in losing their money, ultimately, they don't have money anymore to invest. The people who end up with money to keep investing are the ones who are better at it.

Posit a theoretical public/government technological investment equiv. What makes you think the members of that board wouldn't have invested just as poorly? All the evidence points to them making worse investment choices, not better ones. After all, it's not their money, it's your money, so they have a different incentive in their investing. A much more political incentive with goals other than simply finding the most useful technology that people will want to pay for. And after this government equiv.'s investment failed? They'd either keep pumping in money to prop it up, or at the very least, the people making the bad investment decisions would just keep making them. After all, the government has more of your money to spend, right?

Please go learn some Public Choice economics. You'll understand the world a lot better.

Wasn't the alternative bankruptcy? Did they purposely sabotage the company? Didn't they lose the invested money too? Then why is it paying something being an asshole?

Well, what happened was pretty scummy. After all, what happened was all of a sudden, an unconfirmed rumor popped up that OnLive was bankrupt. The official company line though was everything was fine. Then two weeks later everyone got the news that OnLive was taken over by OnLIve.

Effectively, the investors in the original OnLive could've gotten out (but instead lost it all), while the CEO and management, and half of the engineers got "transferred" to the new company and the rest were pretty much shown the door.

The execs losing their investment? Most likely not - it pwas probably written in that they got 100 cents on the dollar for their investments by the new OnLive. Everyone else, got screwed as usualy.

Hell, even the employees with no jobs were basically kicked out without severance, or the option to plead their case in bankruptcy court. The company effectively went bankrupt, fired everyone, got "bought out", management re-hired, and half the fired engineers re-hired.

It's basically a way to downsize without paying benefits and screwing over investors, while management walks away with nothing's changed. Probably a very creative loophole in the law.